


we're not a zero-sum game

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coffee Shops, F/F, Getting Together, Ghosts, M/M, Nishinoya Yuu & Tanaka Ryuunosuke are Bros, Overthinking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, and a mystery?, like soft urban fantasy though, original setting but not really, there be blood drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:45:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: Written forBuckyas part of theHaikyuu!! Secret Santa!Suga learned a few things in quick succession. The barista who worked the later shift was also a vampire, his name was Sawamura Daichi, he was infuriatingly handsome and his extreme reaction to Suga’s first visit hadn’t been a fluke. For reasons he tried and failed to fathom, Daichi had trouble keeping his wits about him in Suga’s presence.Thus, the game was born.





	we're not a zero-sum game

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhh, what to do when one of the haikyuu!! fantasy au royalty requests your favorite couple and urban fantasy for their secret santa story?? Bucky, please accept this offering and my gratitude for being such an awesome member of this wonderful fandom. 
> 
> This softcore fantasy world is loosely based on the [Moonstruck](https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/moonstruck-1) comic. 
> 
> I took a few liberties with Suga's character based on my latest re-read of the manga, so I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed exploring the his dynamic personality!

Three minutes after his last student shuffled through the door, Sugawara Koushi carefully examined the empty room. 

A few of them usually lagged behind, but, for the first time in recent memory, it was five minutes to the hour and he was alone. He expected someone to pop out from inside a cabinet armed with a long-winded complaint about the homework or a complicated question that would take them back to his office, so he let exactly two hundred and forty more seconds pass before pouncing on the rare and wonderful opportunity to leave early. 

The short commute from campus to downtown Night Hollow was almost negligible when made by a vampire, so Suga had only just managed to push all of mundane goings-on of his night to the very back of his mind by the time LifeBlood Café’s hand-painted sign came into view. 

Suga ran his tongue over his fangs and smacked his lips together, his budding smile hidden behind the gratuitous scarf looped around his neck. The wee hour of the morning meant that he wouldn’t run into a human who’d be put off by his teeth and the winter chill was something he left to poets and climatologists. He simply liked the way the soft fabric felt around his neck and how the pale blue looked against his skin.

The fact that the someone he was on his way to see had complimented his sweater of the same color the week before had barely influenced his decision to buy the silly item when he passed it in a shop window. 

Blurred orange orbs reflected in the puddles that Suga deftly avoided while he navigated the dwindling crowd lingering under Night Hollow’s signature wrought iron street lamps. Five hours past witching meant that many members of the moonlight crowd were settling down for the night, but the best part of Suga’s night was still to come. 

He leaped over the puddle that plagued LifeBlood’s entrance and slid into the cozy café, hopping in line behind a bored-looking minotaur scrolling on their phone. Suga strategically positioned himself them and, understanding that it was a calculated risk, peered over their furry shoulder. 

Standing at the counter in his usual spot, Sawamura Daichi poured milk into one of LifeBlood’s signature red mugs. 

Suga almost got a mouthful of plush minotaur fur as he watched Daichi raise, dip and wiggle a metal pitcher with unwavering focus. One corner of the barista’s mouth was tucked in, dimpling his cheek, and his fangs pressed into the skin right underneath his bottom lip. He’d had the chance to catalog many of Daichi’s expressions over the two months since his first visit and kept them dutifully organized close to the front of his mind. Daichi’s current expression signaled his complete absorption in the task at hand. 

If Suga thought it was adorable, it was solely a footnote in the overall observation. 

With a final flick of his wrist, Daichi righted the pitcher and put it back on the counter, which meant Suga only had a moment or two longer to stare. He took in as many details as he could, like the way Daichi’s coarse hair bristled against the smooth brown skin of his neck and the way his eyes lit up as he took in the design he’d just poured. 

Suga ducked just as Daichi raised his head and the minotaur moved forward, which meant that they were only one step closer to the beginning of the game.

He hadn’t realized it until later, but the game had started the very first time Suga had come into LifeBlood Café, on the recommendation of one of his former students. He hadn’t been able to outrun the rain and stumbled into the place looking like he’d just run a marathon on the ocean floor. The barista had tripped over his words during their conversation and excused himself immediately after. Suga had assumed it was because the guy was too nice to tell him he’d looked like a frizzy drowned vampire bat and needed to laugh it off, but he enjoyed their signature blood blend enough that he returned after his classes the next night, and the night after that, and again until it had become a routine.

Suga learned a few things in quick succession. The barista who worked the later shift was also a vampire, his name was Sawamura Daichi, he was infuriatingly handsome and his extreme reaction to Suga’s first visit hadn’t been a fluke. For reasons he tried and failed to fathom, Daichi had trouble keeping his wits about him in Suga’s presence. 

Thus, the game was born.

The vampire that kept their composure the longest won. Suga had originally thought he’d sweep the floor with Daichi, but the barista proved to be a formidable opponent despite his lack of awareness. Suga caught himself shuddering with the memory of the night Daichi forgot to take off the bandana that keep his hair back in the kitchen. It had taken an entire weekend and quite a few lurid dreams for Suga to bounce back from such a crushing defeat. 

The line moved again and Suga wiggled with anticipation as Daichi asked the minotaur how he could help. Any compunction Suga might’ve felt about leaning into a stranger’s back vanished with the timbre of Daichi’s voice.

There was something grounding in the way he spoke, like each word was a wave that carried lost souls back to solid ground. His job dictated that he repeat the same handful of sentences, but Daichi never sounded like he was on autopilot, even when Suga listened to him for hours over the low murmur of his headphones. 

Daichi gave the minotaur the total of their order and Suga ran his hands through his wily gray hair just as many times as it took to convince himself that it actually made a difference. When the minotaur thanked Daichi in a pleasant, gravelly voice, Suga squared his shoulders. 

The minotaur stepped aside and Suga flashed Daichi his cheekiest grin. At the same time, the clean mug Daichi was holding fell to the floor and exploded at his feet. 

Suga knew he was supposed to say something, or feel something about the success of his opening move, but he was completely engrossed by Daichi’s reaction; his eyes widened like saucers and his lips were still parted slightly parted from the surprised “oh” he muttered just before dropping the mug. 

Daichi’s manager pushed through the door that led to the kitchen and joined Daichi at the counter. “And I thought vampires were supposed to have good reflexes!” 

“Hiya, Michimiya-san,” Suga said, not ignoring the way Daichi shut his jaw with a light click. 

“Ah, Sugawara! You’re early today.” 

He shrugged, hoping it came off as nonchalant and not like he’d been looking forward to his visit all night. “Got out of class a little early, so thought I’d shake things up a bit.”

“Or break them entirely,” Michimiya joked. She elbowed Daichi in the ribcage hard that he winced. He didn’t think Daichi was bluffing, either. Even in her diminutive human form, Michimiya was still a werewolf. 

“That definitely happened,” Daichi said, like he had to hear it for himself to believe it. He awarded Suga with an apologetic smile, which he tucked away for future pining. “Sorry.”

Suga soaked up Daichi’s attention and leaned forward on the counter. “You should be apologizing to the boss, not to me.”

“Right, sorry Michimiya. I’ll grab the broom.”

“Nah,” she said, putting a hand Daichi’s shoulder to still him. “I’ll get the broom, and you’ll help Suga.” Daichi opened his mouth to protest, but Michimiya cut him off with a stern look that she only just managed to hold. “Manager’s orders.” 

Daichi shook his head as if he were trying to dissuade himself from arguing and smiled as he directed his attention to Suga, who would’ve paled even further if he were physiologically capable. Both of his cheeks dimpled and his eyes lit up with the expression, sending Suga into a silent frenzy. Daichi wore that particular expression when when someone said or did something he really enjoyed. It was the smile that haunted Suga the most, and when it was directed at him he thought he might understand the vulnerability humans must feel when they walk among immortals. 

“The usual, Suga?” 

“Please,” he said weakly. 

Daichi nodded, smiling to himself as he reached for the insulated stainless steel carafe tagged with a hastily-drawn fanged smiley face. He poured the viscous red elixir into a new mug and, when it was full, he cupped it in his palms to check the temperature. Suga decided it was perfectly acceptable to be jealous of a stupid piece of clay. 

“Suga?” 

He jolted, hitting his hip against the counter without an ounce of the grace normally associated with vampires. 

Daichi bit back a laugh. “Looks like I got you that time.”

“You definitely did.”

Daichi handed the drink across the counter, and Suga let his fingers graze Daichi’s knuckles as he took the mug into his own hands. The customer behind Suga cleared their throat, jolting him back to the reality where Daichi stayed behind the counter and Suga left to find a table, the one where their game came to an end.

“Thanks,” Suga said quietly. 

“Anytime.” Daichi’s brow furrowed but he didn’t say anything else, and the other customer cleared their throat again, loudly enough that neither of them could ignore it. 

Suga didn’t make it to a table, choosing instead to slump at the end of the counter. If he’d just won their game, he certainly didn’t feel like a winner. If he just lost, it stung like a stake to the heart. 

In the beginning, poking and prodding a handsome stranger had its charms. The game was still fun, in theory. Suga liked thinking about all the ways he could get a reaction out of Daichi, about provoking new expressions. He liked exploring Daichi’s smiles. He liked to be the one receiving them.

Somewhere along the line, the game he made up got complicated. 

At some point, winning was no longer enough and losing just meant that Daichi had succeeded in sinking his warm smiles and calloused hands deeper and deeper into Suga’s mind. It was still easy when it was just him, alone with his thoughts in between meetings or grading exams, to chalk it up to his competitive nature but as soon as he saw Daichi he was overwhelmed with the feeling like he was missing something crucial about the whole situation.

In practice, the game was maddening. 

Michimiya had dumped the last collection of ceramic shards into the trash bin at the end of the counter, right in front of Suga, and she peered up at him through thick eyelashes. “Something on your mind?” 

He bit the inside of his cheek. He considered asking her about Daichi, like he had almost every night before, but he couldn’t help believe that asking would only confirm the truth, that it was all in his head. “Not really,” he lied, and then raised his mug like he wanted to give a toast. “Just looking forward to the best cup of blood in Night Hollow.”

“You know it! And it’s especially true tonight,” Michimiya said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Daichi sourced that blood and blended it himself. I caught him coming in a couple hours early to rope some of our earlier evening people into testing it.”

“He’s definitely dedicated to the job.”

“Maybe,” she said, drawing out the first syllable. “But I wonder if it’s less about the job and more about making sure his favorite customer keeps coming back.” Suga was suddenly immensely grateful vampires couldn’t blush. “Well try it already! I want to see if Daichi’s hard work paid off.”

Suga maintained eye contact as he brought the cup to his lips and took a tentative sip. As soon as the warm liquid hit his tongue, energy snapped and crackled under his skin. He had to put the cup down immediately so he wouldn’t chug it like a monster.

“Well?” 

“‘S so good,” Suga groaned, unable to be embarrassed by the blissful haze brought on by a fine cup of blood. 

Michimiya pumped her fist. “Sweet! I don’t have to fire him after all!”

“Fire him?”

“Hah, no,” Michimiya said. “I’m kidding. Actually, I’m not sure I could fire anyone. Yikes. That’s not great for a manager, is it?”

“I don’t think you’re a bad manager,” Suga said unhelpfully. 

“That’s so sweet, oh! Yoko-chan!”

Suga turned to see who caught Michimiya’s attention and his jaw dropped. “Shimizu-san?”

“Sugawara, hello.” She transitioned into her corporeal form just as Michimiya sidled up next to her and blushed as she received a peck on her freshly solidified cheek. When Michimiya settled back on her heels, Shimizu reverted back to a barely opaque shimmer. She directed a smile toward Michimiya, who wiggled with excitement. “Hi, Yui-chan.”

“You guys know each other?”

“Sugawara-san teaches the later chemistry classes,” Shimizu explained. “His office is just down the hall from mine, but we haven’t seen much of each other lately.”

“True,” Suga said, not really realizing it until Kiyoko pointed it out. “You must be teaching before the witching hour.”

Kiyoko hummed. “I do, though surprisingly I see quite a bit of one of your former students.”

“What?”

Michimiya slapped her face between her palms, interrupting their conversation. “Holy moonbeams! Wait! So chemistry Sugawara is _our_ Sugawara?!” 

Kiyoko’s laughter tinkled like wind chimes. “I didn’t realize it either. Does that mean Sugawara is the regular that Daichi-”

Suga froze. Michimiya had cut Shimizu off with a sharp yelp, but he ran through every possible way he could think of to get her to finish the thought and how much of his dignity he’d be willing to surrender. He opened his mouth to give it a try, but closed it again when Shimizu flickered. 

“Yoko-chan?” Michimiya asked, stepping back so that she run her eyes up and down Shimizu’s form.

“What’s going on?” 

Suga started upon hearing Daichi’s voice; he hadn’t even noticed his arrival, which would’ve struck Suga as strange if he hadn’t been focused on the way his colleague’s form quivered erratically. 

“Hi Daichi, I’m sure it’s-” Shimizu was cut off as she flickered again, this time disappearing for a moment before reappearing. “Nothing important,” she finished. 

Ghosts weren’t uncommon, but very little was known about them. The only concrete things they, as a society, knew were that ghosts existed as a function of their tether, whether it was an inanimate object that had been close to them in life or their mortal remains, that their presence was disrupted when their tether was disturbed and that if something damaged their tether too severely, they disappeared. Once a ghost disappeared, they didn’t come back. 

Suga was one millisecond away from full-blown panic. Shimizu Kiyoko was a respected scholar and a valued colleague, but she was more than that to Michimiya and Daichi, and Suga couldn’t for the death of him understand why Daichi and Michimiya weren’t freaking out. He was about to ascertain the whereabouts of her tether and its safety when Daichi’s voice rang above his thoughts. 

“Ennoshita?”

A customer that Suga thought was a human lifted his head from a large, dusty tome. Suga didn’t have many human students, but if he did, they had the same angry purple bruises below their eyes. He recognized the guy as a regular, sitting at the same table by the window, but Suga hadn’t realized exactly _what_ he was until the hair on the back of his neck prickled. 

“Have you seen our two resident idiots lately?” 

The confusion in Ennoshita’s schooled expression was barely perceptible. “No,” he said, straightening up in his seat. “But they’re not usually here so close to morning… Why?”

Daichi gestured to Shimizu, who had been reduced to unflattering static. 

Realization rolled into Ennoshita’s eyes and he sighed like the weight of the world had pressed it out of his lungs. “Ah. Do you want me to find them?”

“If you could.”

Ennoshita responded by pushing his book just far enough away from him to clear a small place on the table and closing his eyes. Quiet sounds, presumably words, spilled over his lips, and he traced symbols on the table with his index finger, lightly stroking the surface in time with the incantation. It was hard to tell whether Ennoshita was an experienced witch or if he just used the spell a lot, but he wove it with startling efficiency. He fell quiet and opened his eyes, searching the marks he’d just made. When he spoke again, he looked even more exhausted. 

“They didn’t get far,” he said, closing his fingers into a fist. “Looks like they’re in the parking lot. Do you want me to call them?”

“No, I’m going to meet them personally,” Daichi said, his voice eerily calm. “Michimiya, if anything changes, let me know as soon as possible.”

“Got it,” she said, giving him a thumbs up. Shimizu nodded through her pulsing image. 

In the blink of an eye, Daichi was gone. Suga followed without hesitation. 

Daichi was fast, even for a vampire, and Suga struggled to keep up. He kept his eyes on Daichi’s back as he maneuvered confidently through the twists and turns of residential Night Hollow. While the situation seemed crazy to Suga, he’d gathered that they’d been through something like that before and wondered if following Daichi had been the right thing to do. 

He was worried about Shimizu, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t also bursting with curiosity. 

He was so deep in thought that he crashed right into Daichi’s back when he stopped in the middle of an alley. Suga selfishly bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t come up with an excuse to enjoy Daichi’s hard muscle under his fingertips for longer than the three seconds he had before pulling his hands away. 

Daichi looked over his shoulder in surprise, like he hadn’t realized Suga had been the one to follow him.

It was becoming increasingly more difficult for Suga to focus on anything other than how close they were, but he managed to eke out a hushed greeting. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Daichi repeated in a low whisper. Suga expected to be questioned, or politely told to fuck off, so he looked up with open shock when Daichi said, “I suppose I owe you a quick explanation.”

“Only if you want,” Suga replied honestly. He realized with unsettling clarity that since he’d followed Daichi without knowing a thing about where they were going, there was a good chance he’d follow him anywhere. 

“We have a couple of part-time employees who are not afraid to make asses of themselves, especially when it comes to Shimizu.”

Suga remembered the phrase Daichi used just moments earlier. “Your resident idiots?”

“That’ll be them.”

“I’ve got a few students that could also fall into that category.”

“I’m sure,” Daichi empathized. “They’re not bad people, but sometimes it’s really hard to believe their heads aren’t filled with bricks.”

Suga snorted loudly and immediately brought his hands up to his mouth even though the sound had already been made. Luckily, Daichi wasn’t bothered.

“So this kind of thing happens from time to time. They try to ‘help’ her and end up either looking stupid or causing trouble.”

Suga cocked his head at Daichi’s word choice. “Help?”

“Make her more permanent, I think. To give her the freedom they don’t think she has.”

“Oh.” There were a lot of beings, supernatural and otherwise, that believed ghosts were simple impressions of the people they were before death or that they were incomplete because they couldn’t be seen, heard and touched at the same time. It was a very simple view, Suga thought. Short-sighted at best and harmful at worst.

He must’ve voiced the thought, because Daichi agreed. “You’re telling me.” He gestured to the night sky. “Like for us, no one would ever say I’m not complete because I can’t be outside during the day. But anyway, our well-meaning culprits are right around the corner. You still want to come along?”

“Definitely.”

Daichi chuckled under his breath and surged forward, through the small alley where they’d stopped. Suga followed him between the apartment buildings and turned the corner, right on Daichi’s tail. They came across two bodies huddled together in the dingy parking lot, not ten feet away, and one of them looked awfully familiar. Suga was the first one to break the silence. “Tanaka-kun?”

Tanaka and his friend whipped around and put their hands behind their backs in one fluid motion. 

“Suga-sensei? And Daichi-san?!”

“It really is a small world,” Daichi said. His voice was carefully devoid of emotion and he kept his eyes forward, but Suga saw the sharp edge of his smile. It was just as alluring as it was terrifying. 

The vampire next to Tanaka was the shortest of the group but there was enough fire in his eyes to burn Night Hollow to the ground. If the circumstances were different, Suga might’ve been impressed. “We’re not doing anything, Daichi-san!” He chirped. 

“Nishinoya, if I actually have to ask you for Shimizu’s locket, I swear on my immortal existence-”

Something niggled at the back of Suga’s mind when he saw his former student, the same one who’d recommended he try LifeBlood the semester before, and as soon as Tanaka opened his mouth to interrupt Daichi’s tirade, his stomach dropped with unfortunate understanding. 

“I’d tell you, Suga-sensei can explain it better than us. It’s lucky that he’s here!”

Tanaka Ryuunosuke wasn’t cruel, Suga knew that, but his hopeful smile still felt like ray of sunlight burning a hole straight through his head. 

“Uh, well,” he sputtered, aware of Daichi’s piercing gaze. “Tanaka-kun was of my students and we used to talk about certain… Theories.”

“C’mon Suga-sensei! Show us your super smart professor stuff! Tell Daichi-san about that article on your blog.”

Suga stalled. 

His blog wasn’t common knowledge among the beings he knew for a reason. He wasn’t embarrassed by his intellectual hobby, but posting publicly about controversial theories that still lacked concrete scientific basis wouldn’t bolster his academic career and definitely didn’t help endear him to others. No one had wanted to hear him babble until Tanaka came along. 

Despite barely managing to pass Suga’s introductory chem class, Tanaka had put enough pieces together to identify him as the author and started asking him questions about it during office hours. 

Near the end of the summer term, Tanaka had brought up a post Suga wrote about an article from the Supernatural Journal of Archaeological Studies, a publication that Suga wouldn’t cite professionally but whose members presented ideas that were interesting enough to distract Suga from his dissertation. That particular article was about the possibility of ancient ley lines running through Night Hollow. 

If it were true, it would’ve meant untapped potential for scientific study. They could’ve unearthed the lines and found any number of things, evidence of the niche Victorian theories about aether or even proof that human Newtonian physics could be applied even to ancient spiritual powers. 

Unfortunately for everyone involved in their current situation, he’d only realized just then why Tanaka was interested in the article; ley lines were most typically associated with ghosts, and the major theory was that a ghost’s tether could be buried along a ley line and not only would the tether become obsolete, but also allow the ghost to maintain all of their forms. They wouldn’t have to choose just two of the three; the could be seen, heard and touched at the same time. 

But it was just a theory, like the very existence of ley lines, and if Tanaka had asked him plainly, he would’ve told him that, and maybe, just maybe, they could’ve avoided this whole thing. 

“Well?” Daichi asked. 

Suga attempted to scrape together the shortest and least incriminating explanation possible. “Tanaka-kun is referring to some…” Suga wondered how his throat could feel like sandpaper without actual saliva, “Thoughts I had regarding the theory that there are ley lines surrounding Night Hollow.”

“Yeah!” Tanaka said brightly, elbowing Nishinoya. “Suga-sensei got super excited about it in his office, so after the summer semester was over we did a whole bunch of research about ley lines and boom!”

Nishinoya continued. “So when we find the ley lines, Shimizu-senpai will be free to be whatever she wants.”

“That’s _if_ ,” Suga interjected, partially to save face with Daichi and partially because he was getting frustrated with his student for conflating research with grasping at straws. “There’s no hard evidence.”

Tanaka was undeterred. “Yet! You even said so yourself, Suga-sensei.”

“So, let me see if I got this straight,” Daichi growled. “You found out about Shimizu-san’s tether, waited until the girls were away, broke into their apartment and stole Shimizu-san’s tether so you could bury it in a random place around town just because some crackpot theory said so?”

“Hey!” Suga blurted out. “Just because it’s a theory doesn’t mean it’s crazy.” Unable to stop himself, he muttered, “almost everything starts out as a theory.”

Daichi glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “You’re not helping your case, Suga-sensei,” he said, imitating the brash lilt of Tanaka’s voice. 

“I mean, Suga-sensei wrote about that cool article, but he doesn’t know anything!”

Suga folded his arms across his chest and scoffed. “I know some things!” He pointed at Tanaka. “Like I know for a fact you took basic supernatural biology and are fully aware that disturbing a ghost’s tether could cause irreparable harm. And I would’ve told you that if you hadn’t gone off and pretended that the first three pages of a google search results counted as reputable sources!” 

Much to everyone’s surprise, Daichi started to laugh. Nishinoya, Tanaka and Suga gawked like he’d just sprouted a second set of fangs and bat wings. 

“I’m just going to stop you all right there. Nishinoya, I know you have Shimizu’s tether. Just hand it over so that I can let Michimiya know that her girlfriend is safe.”

“I don’t have anything?” 

Daichi rolled his eyes. “Really? You don’t have anything in your hands, the ones you’ve literally been hiding behind your back the whole time? Please, _please_ just cut the crap for a minute.” 

Nishinoya’s shoulders slouched as he stepped forward. He brought his hand out from behind his back and dropped an old-fashioned silver locket into Daichi’s open palm. Daichi carefully tucked the necklace into the front pocket of his jeans, tapped a message on his phone and slipped it back into his back pocket. “Now that’s settled, it’s time for the fun part.”

“The fun part?” Tanaka asked meekly. 

“As of tomorrow evening, you two are stuck on deep cleaning duty for the next six months and I’ll be using part of your weekly pay to refit the girls’ apartment with new locks.”

Tanaka pushed his bottom lips against his fangs. “That’s no one’s definition of fun, Daichi-san.”

“Oh, but Michimiya and I will be having loads of fun _watching_ you clean.”

To their credit, Nishinoya and Tanaka groaned but did not fight the punishment or push Daichi any further. 

“I’m going to wait for Michimiya to get here, and I suggest you two,” Daichi pointed at Tanaka and Nishinoya, “get out of here before either she or Ennoshita shows up.”

The offending vampires looked at Daichi like he just told them he’d lock them in a room for eternity.

“Yup,” Daichi said with unrestrained glee. “Ennoshita is well aware of the situation.”

Tanaka ran a hand down his face. “Aw man.”

“We’re never going to hear the end of it,” Nishinoya whined. 

“And that thought will lull me to sleep for the foreseeable future. Now get out of here before I find more ways to make your lives miserable.”

Nishinoya and Tanaka scrambled past Daichi together like they were joined at the hip but, right before they disappeared, Tanaka shouted over his shoulder, “Nice to see you again, Suga-sensei!”

Suga scowled at him before taking refuge in his scarf.

His first time alone with Daichi played out very differently than he’d imagined. In none of the one hundred thirty-seven scenarios he’d imagined did he think something he thought or said would put a colleague at risk and force Daichi to swoop in like a vampire superhero and save the day. 

Although the thought of Daichi dressed as some sort of caped vigilante made an enticing picture, Suga could do without the simmering guilt that roiled every drop of blood he’d consumed that evening. The longer they stood in silence, the more nauseous he became. It was time to admit defeat, once and for all. 

“I-“

“You-” 

Daichi shook his head. “You first.”

“I’m sorry,” Suga said, doing his best to avoid mentally dissecting Daichi’s strange and mysterious smile. “I didn’t know that Tanaka-kun even knew Shimizu, or that he was planning something on such a nuclear level of stupidity.”

Daichi opened his mouth, then shut it again with a small puff of laughter. 

“What?” Suga asked, cursing his curiosity for what felt like the tenth time in the last hour.

“I was going to say that even with that big brain of yours, you’re still just as troublesome as the rest of them.”

Suga fumbled for the switch to turn his brain off. “Sorry,” he apologized again. “I’ll just get out of here so that you and Michimiya can get Shimizu settled.” When he took a step however, however, a gentle tug on his sleeve stopped him. Daichi was still looking at him with that beguiling expression. 

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“What way?”

“The way that made you pout just now,” Daichi said, using his other hand to gesture to Suga’s mouth. 

Suga blinked back his surprise. “I’m not pouting.”

“Well, not anymore.”

Daichi was still holding Suga’s sleeve and he rubbed the wool between his fingers absentmindedly. Suga made no move to pull away, but he wasn’t about to stand in a creepy parking until the sun rose with no idea how he was supposed to interpret their awkward conversation and still feeling like he might throw up at any moment, so he tugged his sleeve lightly enough that it didn’t fall from Daichi’s grip but caught his attention. 

“Right,” Daichi said loudly, then, quietly, “this was so much easier in my head.”

“What was easier?”

“Asking you out.”

From the way Daichi’s eyes widened, Suga assumed he was just as surprised to have answered as Suga was to have heard the words. “You want to go out with me?”

“Yes.”

“On a date?”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

Daichi snorted. “No, with the thousand other vampires in the parking lot.”

“I just wanted to make sure!” 

“So… is that a yes?”

Suga had never wished he wasn’t a vampire and he’d never wished that Daichi wasn’t one either, but he wished he could snap a picture of Daichi’s face just once. Bashful barista Daichi was there in the softness around his eyes and so was confident-superhero Daichi in the way his lips curled, and the more Suga looked at him the more he comprehended how amazing it was that Daichi was actually offering him the chance to observe the infinite facets of his personality. 

And, perhaps even more miraculously, Daichi wanted to explore his as well. 

“We’re not a zero-sum game,” Suga said, breathless with the rush that came when all the pieces of a difficult puzzle fell into place.

Daichi raised a thick brow in confusion.

“I was looking at the game all wrong,” Suga said, small bursts of laughter spilling over his lips. “We both can win!”

“I’m glad? But Suga, you haven’t...”

“Yes!” He blurted out before Daichi could ask a third time. “That was a yes. Definitely a yes.”

Daichi’s smile was so wide, so bright that Suga thought the moon might take offense. He felt Daichi’s hand slip into his, and Suga laced their fingers together. 

“You’ll have to tell me about this game of yours,” Daichi said, pulling Suga closer. “What did we win?”

Suga squeezed his hand.“You don’t need a doctorate to figure it out, Daichi.”

“I don’t have a blog about conspiracy theories either.”

“You’re lucky you’re just as handsome as you are sassy.”

Daichi poked his tongue out between his teeth and they laughed together in the grimy parking lot behind his colleague’s apartment. Suddenly, there was a staggeringly huge number of possibilities for new manifestations of the game, and Suga was more than ready to explore every single one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!!


End file.
